Easier to Lie
by emsana
Summary: Dean's not the favourite son and Sam is never going to know. Spoilers for up to end of Season 3.


Easier to Lie

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Dean realises Sammy is the favourite when he's stilling pointing a gun in a motel room, at an evil that's no longer there, and Dad's yells are ringing in his ears but both of them can only think one thing. _Sammy_. Dean doesn't care at first because, when he's honest, Sam is Dean's favourite too and all he knows when he knows nothing else is _look after Sammy_ so it couldn't really be any other way. Then Sam leaves.

When Sam picks up his bag and doesn't turn around, when Dean chases him out onto the road even though it's freezing and he's only wearing jeans and a shirt and practically begs, begs, begs. Sam doesn't even look at him and doesn't look back at Dad but keeps on walking round Dean until Dean can't take it any more, can't breath, but not because he's been shouting, then Dean knows something's really, really wrong. Dad takes him to stay with Bobby for a few days. He's twenty-two years old and he feels like he's still eight and he feels like he's been missing Sam so long he's eighty-eight and Dad leaves him at Bobby's. Bobby makes dozens of mugs of coffee and Dean feels like he's been left there while Dad's on a hunt, and Dad is on a hunt, Sam's gone, and Dad's on a hunt. He's given newspapers too peer over but not to see and he remembers leaning over Bobby's shoulder when he's about six years old and Sam's asleep on the sofa. But Sam isn't asleep on a sofa, Sam's in Stanford and Dean doesn't know if he's asleep on a sofa, or in a motel, or in a doorway but as long as Sam's asleep and breathing then that's better than the alternative. Dean sleeps a lot in those days too because he can't miss Sam when he's asleep, but he can sure as hell try.

Dad comes and picks him up and heralds a practically catatonic son with 'I got it Dean' and later, 'there's a hinkypunk in South Carolina' and for a second Dean hears California before Dad asks him to go with him and Dean hasn't said anything to his father than 'Yes Sir' a thousand times so it can't hurt to say it once more.

He's leaning against the wall because for the first time that week he can't sleep because Carolina isn't California, and Sam is going to be on the other side of the country. He listens numbly to Dad telling Bobby that Sam's being stubborn and pig headed and Bobby tells him that if Sam Winchester is anything like his father he's going to stay that way and all John does is laugh, _he always was like his father_. And Dean is twenty-two years old and even though Sammy's gone Sammy's still the favourite and Dean's not sure which reason it is but he's twenty-two years old and he's sitting on a cold floor in South Dakota crying.

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When Dean sees Sam for the first time in over two years, sees him in person and he's gotten so tall, if that were even possible, when Dean sees him he's not thinking about him being the favourite all he's thinking is all he thinks when he can't think anything else and that's _Sammy_.

When Dean sees Sam and Dad fighting for the first time in three years, really fighting, on a muddy track in Colorado when they really should be dealing with the matter at hand Dean starts thinking that Sammy's the favourite, the way Dad looks at Sam when Dean's dragging them apart is the same way he looked when he saw them in Chicago. Dean remembers hugging Dad but it was Dad that hugged Sam and Dean's thinking what a stupid word hug is because he can't think of what it really means. He really starts thinking it though at the most inappropriate time ever because he's lying on a floor with his mouth filling with blood and his chest pouring it out and there's just too much blinding pain but Dad's standing shouting at Sam and for a moment no-one seems to remember he's even there but he's dying on the back seat of his own car and demons lie but sometimes they tell the truth.

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When Dean wakes up in a the hospital when all he remembers is dying and not being able to think anything but Sammy's the favourite and wanting to so badly. He tells Sam he doesn't remember anything because he can't tell Sam that he just had the demon on loop _they don't need you like you need them_, _ it's more concern than he's ever shown for you_, _Sammy's obviously John's favourite,_because even if demon's do lie it's true and Dean just wished he didn't care that it was.

When Dad dies in the hospital all Dean is thinking is that John had nothing more to say to his son than _look after Sammy_ and the guilt of Dad dying for him is nothing compared to how guilty he feels that Dad always putting him second to the bigger picture, to looking after Sammy, is eating away at him more. Demons lie and when Sam asks if Dad told him anything so does Dean.

Dean lies to Sam for a year and he even starts to believe himself because Dean has to look after Sammy and he can't do that and tell him the truth. When Sam's alive and well and eating pizza and Bobby asks him how he could sell himself for his brother Dean can't tell him that it's more than not being able to live without him. He lies, because he couldn't live with himself, because he's nothing without _look after Sammy_, it's what he breathes, and if Dad sold his soul for his second best son then Dean is sure as hell going to sell his soul for the favourite.

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Dean dies in the middle of the road somewhere in America and he can't help but think maybe it's because he isn't the favourite, but more than that he's thinking _look after Sammy_ and he couldn't do that alive so he might as well be dead.

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Dean can't help thinking, as he watches his brother watch him die, that he was so much easier lying to himself than lying to Sammy, that he can barely remember what half-truth it was he was living in the first place. Dean is twenty-nine years old and he wasn't expecting to entirely but he still thinks it's a shame he didn't make it to thirty and even more of a shame he won't be around to make sure that Sam makes it that far.

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Dean stops lying to Sammy just before his heart stops and he'd say I'm sorry but he can't because it's his last breath and it's all he breathes so it's something else instead.


End file.
